Ploss is disheartened. Ploss is wounded. Ploss is sad. Ploss envies Fort A3, a German league from Fort Orff. Here a mere non-commissioned officer is in command. The fort is in truth little more than a redoubt. Two hundred and fifty Frenchmen of the 6th corps are packed into the place. Their only exercise ground consists of muddy and dark passages, a narrow ditch, and a tiny platform of about a hundred square feet. There is no upper story. In front of the windows, fifty yards away, are the iron gate and the precipitous slope. Eternal twilight reigns within. The governor is like a narrow-minded usher, a jealous and timid despot, trembling before orders from headquarters and terrible to the prisoners. If only Ploss were Vize-Feldwebel of Fort A3!
I know this little fort. My friend Cambessédès, house-surgeon from Paris, a doctor serving in M. Langlois’ group of stretcher-bearers, has been sent there from Fort 8 as medical officer, accompanied by M. Valois, a prosector from Montpellier. In a note, clandestine, of course, he let us know his whereabouts. Kindly, as usual, Baron von Stengel allowed the medical officers and me to pay them a visit. Thus it came to pass that last Sunday, escorted by a Gefreiter and a soldier with fixed bayonet, we walked from Orff to Wegstetten. It was thawing. Tiny blue rivulets flowing through the pastures and along the furrows of the ploughs reflected the quiet sky. We met groups returning from vespers: women, children, and old men, peaceful folk who nodded to us as they passed.
When we reach the fort, which is insidiously buried in the interior of a bald eminence and is invisible a hundred paces away, a parley is necessary. The Gefreiter hands the officer of the guard of A3 the permit issued by the commandant of Fort Orff. The sentry opens the gate. We pass in. Lining the walls, the red-trousers form an inquisitive and saluting hedge. Cambessédès runs up quite out of breath. Through long, dark, and narrow passages he conducts us to the medical officers’ quarters.
These are screened off by wooden partitions from the remainder of a gloomy casemate. Two beds, two wooden chairs, a table; no vacant space. It suggests a midshipman’s cabin on a man-of-war. The air is raw. Illustrations cut from the Woche are pinned to the wall. Upon a little shelf above my friend’s bed I see his wife’s photograph. A whiff of French perfume is wafted to my senses. I think of Paris, home, the fireside, work, peace! I say little during the visit. We sit down haphazard on the beds, the chairs, the table. A little soldier from Châlons, very quick and lively in his movements, comes in with a jug of coffee and an odd assortment of half-pint mugs. The company talks of the Geneva Convention and of medical and technical matters. Those from Orff get the others to tell of the recent happenings at Fort 8.
I pay scant attention to these petty details, swallowing my coffee mechanically amid the clash of voices and laughter. All my thoughts are in Paris. How strange seems this society of Frenchmen in the remote Bavarian redoubt. It is borne in on me of a sudden that madness rules the world.
Cambessédès and Valois, as hosts, now show us round. A crowd of soldiers follows us. Some of the adjutants post us concerning the life of the prisoners. Poor fellows, they have no von Stengel! In A3 it is impossible to procure any kind of supplement to the official rations. It is impossible to get a jug of good beer from time to time to keep up one’s spirits.
From the platform there is a fine view over the village of Wegstetten and the wood-crowned hills. M. Langlois, at least, thinks so. He looks with all his eyes. He is in ecstasy—when the sentry, a stumpy Swabian in a black greatcoat which is threadbare, weatherworn, and turning rusty-green, pounces upon him, charges bayonet, and touches the major’s tunic with the point of the steel. Our surgeon-in-chief protests: he has made no attempt to climb up the turf-covered breastwork; he has not trespassed into a forbidden region; he has merely been admiring the view. “Quite so,” barks the obstinate little bulldog, snorting angrily; “to look outside is forbidden.”
Unquestionably A3 is very different from Fort Orff! Whatever you do, baron-gaoler, do not ask for leave until we are set at liberty. Do not hand us over to a Ploss!
But even Ploss has his good hours. French lightness of heart is able from time to time to exert its charm over this hard Franconian noddle. His surly air passes off. With a brisk gesture he pushes his greasy Mütze back over the nape of his neck. His brown tuft of hair makes its appearance, giving him an engaging and almost sportive air. During these calms, Davit, the Hercules cook, can with impunity seize the quartermaster, wrestle with him, and make as if to throw him head-first into a boiling cauldron. The paunchy cook of No. 42, when the herrings are being distributed, can then, under Ploss’ very eyes, sneak a good-sized “Bismarck” and stuff it into the pocket of his smock, with the tail sticking out. But beware! The quartermaster’s ordinary temper will suddenly return, and the prisoner with whom he has just been laughing will find himself sentenced to three days’ cells simply for having kept up the game for a second after the eclipse. Ploss is then capable of making allegations likely to bring a man before a firing squad. He will say, for example, “Prisoner X attempted to kill me by striking me on the head with a ladle.”